With the balance of power in the Senate at 50-50, the eyes of the world are once again on 98-year-old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC). The oldest living Senator, the longest serving Senator, and the Senator least likely to retire under his own power has left Republicans privately wondering if their House-Senate-White House trifacta is in trouble. Sen. Thurmond has a hard time making important Senate votes nowadays, and some question whether he always understands exactly what he's voting for.

Sen. Thurmond's latest visits to the hospital -- four in the last year -- have led several Republicans in the South Carolina House to take preventative measures against the possibility of Sen. Thurmond's seat being filled by a Democrat.

Under current state law, the Governor of South Carolina has the authority to appoint pro-tem replacements for Senators who don't finish their terms. The bill being proposed by Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charlestown, would require Gov. Jim to replace Thurmond with a Republican if the the aging Senator is unable to finish his job.

The bill has been criticized sharply by both Hodges and members of both parties in the Senate. Governor Hodges has spoken of this curtailment of powers as "inappropriate and morbid," while questioning the bill's constitutionality. Limestone responds that the bill would preserve the intent of the voters who elected Thurmond. Since the junior Senator Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) is no spring chicken himself at 79, the bill could help both Republicans and Democrats. Thurmond himself has delivered a "no comment" on the bill, presumably preferring to leave it to others to discuss the possibilities of his leaving his powerful job.

Publicly, of course, the 98 year-old Senator elicits nothing but gasps of awe and respect from a chamber traditionally populated with not just a few grumpy old men.

Whenever he manages to read questions off of cards, or bang the gavel as the Senate's president pro tempore, Senators from both parties look at him as a miracle of nature. Looking back a half century, many of his supporters are as likely to recall his career as a parachutist on Normandy as they are his actual political accomplishments.

Thurmond fled the Democrats in 1948 when Truman started integration of the military. In the early fifties, he started his career as a Senator with filibusters of voting-rights legislation. Those episodes are ancient history but they contribute to the mythology of Thurmond as an embodiment of the postwar conservative movement -- defiant, yet grudgingly willing to accept change without burning his political bridges in the ways that, say, George Wallace did.

And Senators on both sides of the aisle privately envy his most famous accomplishment: marrying Nancy, Miss South Carolina, at 66, and fathering a child at 68.

But that was 33 years ago. His last moment in the spotlight was two years ago, as a key senator in the Clinton impeachment hearings. Since then he's been gradually, discreetly hidden from plain view by his faithful body of political aides. Rumors float up and down the corridors about a man who is clearly not quite up to the job, who is disoriented, and who occasionally, if unguided, will cast the wrong vote.

They're big shoes to fill, so who's going to make the play? Ex-beauty queen Nancy Thurmond may have separated from Thurmond in 1991, but she seems to consider herself the likely candidate. In a strange episode last Thanksgiving, according to some news reports, she met Gov. Hodges and discussed a videotaped message from Sen. Thurmond, declaring that should he die or leave office, he would want his wife appointed to replace him. In more recent news reports, Gov. Hodges has refused to make that sort of deal, and Mrs. Thurmond has said she has no interest in taking on the senator's job.

Sen. Thurmond himself also has retracted comments made last year regarding that possibility. According to a story in the Washington Post, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60352-2001Mar12.html] that hasn't stopped Nancy, apparently, from trying to get Thurmond's office to arrange an appointment for Dr. Robert Oldham, a "biotechnology expert" and "social companion" (according to the Washington Post) to a White House position.

Meanwhile, other contenders for the Senate appointment include Thurmond's Chief of Staff Robert Short, who at 66, according to many, has come to be the prime mover in the Senator's office.

In 1996, when Thurmond was re-elected, many observers said he might not see the end of his term. But few knew that his vote would be that important.

Thurmond isn't the only Senate Republican whose endgame may tip the balance of power: Jesse Helms (R-NC) is another Republican Senator whose health and vigor are the subject of speculation. The 79-year-old Helms is certainly fit as ever to create logjams from his position at the head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, but now a hip condition forces him to do it in a mechanized wheelchair.

Republicans are still haunted by the memory of the 83rd Congress, which opened in 1953 with the Senate being controlled 48-47 by Republicans. By 1954 nine senators had died and one had resigned, and Republicans had lost their slim majority, relying on Vice President Richard Nixon to break the ties.

One never knows for whom the bell tolls. But many Republicans are hoping that Thurmond's term will expire before he loses the ability to carry on being a U.S. Senator.

Senator might as well hold onto the job, as he has for 45 years http://www.newsargus.com/newsport/edit/1252000.html

Sen. Strom Thurmond's Office Web site http://www.senate.gov/~thurmond/

The Strom Thurmond Institute of Government & Public Affairs http://www.strom.clemson.edu/